Album of Actor Portraits

c. 1790–1810

Album of Actor Portraits, c. 1790–1810. Shōrakusai (Japanese). Accordion-style album; ink and color on silk mounted on paper and ink on paper; album, opened: 28.1 x 42 cm (11 1/16 x 16 9/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Kelvin Smith Fund 1988.105 The paintings in this album show Kabuki actors costumed for their roles in a variety of plays. The characters are identified in the paper cartouches affixed to the paintings. While each painting is on silk that has been pasted into the album, the poems on some of the facing pages have been written in ink directly onto the page. This album contains paintings of Kabuki actors who performed in the city of Osaka.